Effect of Refresher Workshops on Prescription Writing Skills of Young Dental Practitioners

Objective: To quantitatively evaluate the pre session, post session and short-term impacts of a refresher workshop intervention on the prescription writing skills of young dental practitioners. Study Design: Quasi-experimental study. Place and Duration: Islamabad Dental College (IDH), Islamabad Pakistan, from Oct to Nov 2023. Methodology: A study among 63 young dentists was initiated. Participants were tasked with generating a prescription for a clinical case, both before and after undergoing a prescription-writing workshop. The study employed a within-subjects design, allowing for a comparison of participants' performance before and after the workshop. The collected prescriptions from both pre- and post-workshop assessments were compared to evaluate the immediate and short term (after one month) effects of the intervention. Results: Drug's correct name and frequency was the most common record in the prescriptions. Drug’s correct route of administration was less than 2.0% of the prescriptions. None of the prescribers mention drug’s correct instructions prior to workshop. Both components increase to 42.9% and 65.1% immediately after workshop. Results demonstrated significant difference in scores across all three assessments of prescriptions (p<0.001). Conclusions: The positive impact of the refresher workshop suggests its effectiveness in improving prescription-writing skills among young dentists. The study's results serve as a reference for future research, emphasizing the inadequacy of current academic curricula in addressing prescription-writing skills comprehensively.